Efficient operation of automotive snow plows in Canadian winters requires the snowplow to roll on snow-covered roads at relatively high speeds, while the worm-screw carrying, front-loaded bucket collects snow by the scraping of the road surface with the bucket flooring front leading edge. It is recognized in the field that high-crowned roads are very hazardous for the structural integrity of such snowplows, in that severe damage could occur from impact following the bucket flooring front leading edge striking a rigid transverse road projection. The vehicle can then be brutally stopped, thus sustaining a very heavy structural load.
Skates or snow shoes have been developed in the past to circumvent this problem, being installed beneath the bucket flooring so as to slightly raise the height of the bucket flooring wherein potholes, icepacks and the like on the road will impact the upturned front end of the skates (which will bias the bucket upwardly or at the most, would release the bucket yieldingly under an extreme load, but without any structural damage to the bucket per se) rather than the front leading edge of the bucket flooring. However, these known skates are not very efficient, in that a relatively high ground icepack or other raised projection on the road could still strike the bucket leading edge. On the other hand, by bringing the skates forward of the level of such bucket leading edge, by anchoring such skates laterally outwardly of the bucket opposite vertical side walls, the problem of the hitting of ground obstacles by the bucket leading edge may be resolved, but there is introduced a new problem. This new problem is the fact that these skates, by protruding laterally outwardly from the side walls of the snowplow bucket, will constitute obstacles during operation of the snowplow in snow banks of substantial height, which is to say, by frictionally engaging the snow bank walls defined by the snow-free channel opened frontwardly by the snowplow, the effective working speed of the vehicle will be reduced, and/or the bucket will forcibly break or yieldingly release under the load.